RTS

I apologize for any ambiguity in my previous post. My comment about 'writings being commissioned by the Caesars' specifically referred to Josephus. It is historical that Vespasian and his son Titus authorized and sanctioned the writings of Josephus to be the official Roman version of Jewish history.

Concerning the writings of both Philo and Josephus, they were targeted for the elite Roman readership. Philo was born into one of the wealthiest Jewish families in Alexandria. His brother, Alexander, was chief of customs (alabarch) of the Eastern border of Egypt and guardian of the Emperor Tiberius' mother's properties in Egypt. Alexander was rich enough to lend money to the Jewish king Agrippa 1, and to plate the gates of the Temple of Jerusalem in gold and silver.

Alexander's son, Tiberius Julius Alexander, born ca. 15 CE, had a public career which took him to the highest post of a Roman official in Egypt, that of prefect (66-70 CE). He had then already served as procurator of Judea (46-48 CE) and served as chief of staff under Titus during the siege of Jerusalem 70 CE. (these connections are detailed in the "Flavian Hypothesis" link)

I'm sure you realize that during the first century all Greeks, Egyptians, and Jews were Roman citizens, and it is estimated that less than 1% of the common population was literate, but this aside, one source I found reinforcing Philo's target audience being the "elite" Romans is Professor Peder Borgen (Professor Emeritus, University of Bergen, Norway), who is one of the foremost authorities on Philo, states [even though Philo was an Alexandrian Jew] "Philo remained almost unknown in Jewish tradition until the 16th century. It was the Christian Church which preserved and adopted Philo; Byzantine anthologies even cite excerpts of Philo under the heading "of Philo the Bishop."

So, if your question alludes that Philo's target audience was Jewish and/or Jewish commoners seems not to be the case. (As I have stated above, I'm new to this study of first century Roman History, so any clearer insight or correction is greatly appreciated)

MortalWombat

Philo's audience was varied, but did include Jews, according to this essay.

capnkirk

Excellent post...with one exception. Roman citizenship was not even available to a majority of native Romans, much less to foreign provincials. If you had enough money, or if you provided a service valued by a Roman official, you could become a Roman Citizen. In that era, "citizenship" was not a universal franchise. People from lower classes generally were not afforded the rights of "citizenship".

capnkirk

It may simply be that Pilate, whose career had already ended in disgrace, was seen as expendible in the gospel editing. One goal of the editing was to make the Jews responsible for the execution of the Christ, and having the Roman prefect defer to Jewish demands handily accomplishes that end.

JohnHud

Are the group aware of the Flavian Hypothesis
http://www.bendigo.latrobe.edu.au/sa...s/flavians.htm

It will be the subject of the forthcoming book due out from Ulysess Press in February 2005 titled Caesar's Messiah (available on Amazon).

Has anyone else in this Forum read the draft version??

JH

godalmighty

ok, jesus was NOT a historical figure

seems i read that years ago

www.JesusIsNotGod.com "the biblical truth"

that work says jesus was created by a hermetic scribe to amuse his friends, he shows how in the original koine new testaments the whole story is a joke when compared to the seputuaginta

yep, the premise is right, jesus was not a historical figure

however, the story was not created by flavian inspired whatever

it was created by a greek scribe to amuse his friends that spent all day scribing septuagint's about some mono GOD who demanded his believers lop off the heads of their penises

the whole judeo GOD thing was hilarious to the scribes writing them

the NT was the equivalent of Dante's Inferno in its day

a work of COMEDY it was

Toto

Amazon link to Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk)

We have discussed this author before, but not in depth. The most recent thread is Where are the records? also The Roman Origin of Christianity by Joseph Atwill.

I am a little dubious about it. Dr Rodney Blackhirst, La Trobe University, Bendigo, maintains a web page supporting it, and he also lists the Piso Theory, which I think is a hoax.

DougP

I read over that site a bit. I am really not well enough versed in the subject to evaluate their ideas. However, they seemr reasonable and I would like to do further research on it myself to see what I find. Thanks for the link BTW.

-Doug

godalmighty

the best 'proof' the whole nt is a hoax is to read the stuff in the nag hamaddi library

the 'excluded' works from 2000 years ago

they show jesus was the serpent in the garden

they show jesus was lucifer

it explains how the last thing jesus says I AM THE MORNING STAR is the true hidden meaning of the whole NT thing

look up lucifer in any collegiate dictionary his aka is LUCIFER

so why did jesus claim to be morning star/lucifer in the nt?

why did ancient books contemporary to jesus say he was lucifer?

it was all a joke that is why

read www.JesusIsNotGod.com to see the proof

funniest thing i've ever read the nt in koine

haha

JohnHud

Arwill's evidence seems to me to be absolutely definitive.

The 14 exact parallels between the career of Titus (as described by Josephus) are matched in the 'career' of the fictional figure Jesus.

They appear in exactly the same order in both texts.

Statistically it is 99.99997 certain that one text copied the other. In other words the gospels were created as literary satires of the events in the Jewish War.

It seems to me that this is high quality and unshakeable evidence.

JH